Braces
Expanding Your Palate
If you are an artist, your palatte may be very messy and colorful. If you are a gourmand, then your palate describes your appreciation of smell and taste. Anatomically, your palate as the roof of your mouth.
Some people have a narrow palate for a variety of reasons:
- thumbsucking
- pacificer use
- low tongue posture
- birth defects like a cleft
- mouth breathing
- unknown reasons
Crossbites
Let’s get some definitions out of the way. Upper teeth that bite inside lower teeth are called:
- crossbite
- cross-bite
- cross bite
An anterior crossbite involves the front teeth and a posterior crossbite involves the back teeth.
Rarely, the upper posterior teeth bite completely outside the lower teeth in a condition called a scissor bite.
A posterior crossbite can involve either one side, called a unilateral crossbite, or both sides, called a bilateral crossbite.
Saving Space
Orthodontists are always worrying about space. When we are lucky, and this is most of the time, there is just the right amount of space for the top teeth and the bottom teeth to come together properly when all the teeth touch and are nice and straight.
The primary baby teeth are important for chewing and biting and speaking and especially for maintaining the space needed for the future permanent adult teeth.
When to Start Kids Braces?
Most of my Portland patients ask me when to start braces for their kids. I have been practicing orthodontics in Portland since 1995 and so I have seen many of my pediatric dental patients grow up from infancy through their teens.
Some orthodontists recommend treating crooked teeth or teeth that do not occlude (bite together properly) in two phases or treatment steps. The first phase usually starts around second or third grade and a second phase around sixth grade.
Super Orthodontic Wires
Moving teeth is a relatively simple matter. Just push on a tooth with gentle force for a long time and the tooth will move. Kids that suck their thumbs will move their teeth forward with their thumbs.
We move teeth with brackets glued to teeth and wires between them. The trick to moving teeth orthodontically is to have the gentle forces continue for a long enough time.
Flossing Braces
Keeping braces clean is so important to moving teeth that it bears repeating. Keeping braces clean is so important to moving teeth.
Why is it important you ask? To completely correct a badly positioned tooth, the tooth must slide the brace along the wire in the brace only a few millimeters.
That is NOT very far! Two years to move something the thickness of a pencil!
Invisible Braces for Teens
Invisalign allows teens to straighten their teeth without having to show any metal. These are particularly good for spaced teeth.
This week, a patient from Gresham asked me what would be best for closing his spaced front teeth.
I told him that the Invisalign trays would cover up the spaces as soon as he put them in and make them look much smaller.
Advantages of Invisalign treatment:
- nearly invisible
When to Start Braces
Many parents comment on the number of kids in second or third grade who have some braces.
Treating with two phases of orthodontic care can usually be avoided. Good evidence exists that most orthodontic treatment is best provided at one time as a pre-teen.
However, there ARE times when early orthodontic treatment is useful.
Orthodontic problems that are best treated early:
- lower front teeth that bite outside of upper teeth (a cross bite)
Saving Space
Baby teeth are useful for many things:
- chewing on things (not always a good thing)
- eating
- talking
- smiling
- guiding permanent teeth into proper position
- saving space for permanent teeth
It is a rare day in my pediatric dentistry practice when I do not have to think about the space available for permanent teeth to grow in properly. Sometimes I have to extract teeth to make room then hold the space open with a metal space maintainer.
Retainers
Retainers are what we use to retain, or hold in place, teeth after they have been straightened with braces. In years past, orthodontists believed that wearing retainers for two or three years was enough to keep them straight for life.
This is only correct on about one third of patients. Another third will have minor movement of their teeth without retainer wear, and the last third will have significantly crooked teeth that require more braces to straighten them.
- Expanding Your Palate
- Crossbites
- Saving Space
- Treating Portland Pulps & Root Canals
- When to Start Kids Braces?
- Super Orthodontic Wires
- Icy Tooth Accidents in Oregon
- Plaque in Portland
- Cavities from Breast Feeding?
- Gum Infections in Portland
- Flossing Braces
- Invisible Braces for Teens
- Mouth Sores
- Tears & Fears
- When to Start Braces
